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Battlestar Galactica: Season 4 - Deckmaster

Copypaste from the original signup thread - changed and important bits in bold:

BSG is a board game based on the acclaimed SF tv show. The game contains references to only Season 1 of the show, and if any of the players so wish, I will ban discussing other seasons (most likely 4, as it's fairly new) entirely if they do not want to be spoiled. Readers and commenters should keep this in mind as well.

The game itself works on the basis of humans, cylons, actions and crises. All players are seemingly human in the beginning of the game, but one or two know privately that they are a Cylon.

The humans' task is to keep the Fleet alive and moving towards its objective, the planet of Kobol, and to root out the hidden Cylons.

The Cylons' objective is to prevent the human fleet from reaching Kobol by any means necessary, mostly covertly sabotaging their efforts or by exposing themselves and using special cylon actions to harm the humans.However, this game will be using the New Caprica destination instead of Kobol. The pegasus rulebook should explain the difference to you.

Every round, every player has an action. After every player's action (unless they are a revealed Cylon), a crisis card is drawn. A crisis card is typically a scenario that if not resolved satisfactorily by expending resources (mostly skill cards that everyone draw on their turn) will cause some bad things to happen to the humans. This is the basis of the game - to survive the crises. The humans have the advantage of time, because crisis cards will automatically advance the time and the so called Jump Prep track, which allows the human fleet to progress towards Kobol when full.

Playing the game online works like this - I have a software tool called 'Deck Manager' which will handle the various decks in the game.
I will be the game master, handling game operations via private messages and public messages in this thread. I will keep the players up to speed on everything that is public information in the thread. Players will announce their public actions in the thread. Everything that only one player can know or find out, such as their true loyalty and their card hand, I communicate to them via PM.

The game also has a rule on communication - exact information should never be exchanged. For instance, you should be ambiguous on the strength of your card hand, instead of announcing "I have three strong red cards". You can always announce that you are a Cylon, but if you are actually a human, casting unnecessary doubt on yourself is bad sportsmanship, and if you are actually a Cylon, casting doubt on yourself is simply stupid. The paranoia between humans is what helps the Cylons the most, and makes the game so much fun.
(See also below ..)

Some things have been tweaked to help facilitate online play:

At the bottom of every GM post, there will be a helpful Action Queue that announces what we are waiting for to continue the game. This will usually be the current player's move/action, but could also include such things as a decision from the President/Admiral.

If you are at the top of the Action Queue, you have 24 hours to post/PM to complete it. Once the 24 hours pass, the top of the action queue will be auto-resolved, usually as a "do nothing" action.

Skill checks will have 24 hour time limit. After 24 hours, the check will be resolved.

If you do not play cards for the skill check, I'll let the other players berate you. If I have to auto-resolve a choice for you, 1st and 2nd offenses get a warning, 3rd time you get replaced. It might seem a bit harsh, but this is needed to keep the game moving.

There will be leniency with the 24 hour rule over weekends

All game actions should be bolded in Werewolf style (eg: ##move to Communications or ##use "Executive Order" on Helo).

All face-down cards, including Quorum Cards and Skill Cards will be delivered to the players via PM/AIM. If your draw is straightforward (eg: Adama) your cards will be auto-drawn for you at the beginning of your turn. Players with multi-skills (eg: Apollo) or abilities allowing them to draw cards (eg: Baltar) need to post in the thread what type of card they are drawing (eg: ##draw 1 Politics 1 Engineering). Discards are to be posted openly in the thread.

Skill Checks are handled slightly differently than in the regular rules. Players must announce the number of cards they are playing in the thread, then PM me the specific cards they are playing. This can be done in any order. Once everyone has PMed me, the check will be resolved.

During Skill Checks, players may play cards in any order they choose. You do not have to start with the current player. (However: the official turn order can be enforced in game critical situations on request.)

You may "pre-load" actions ahead of time; (eg: ##If my Viper is attacked, I'll use "Evasive Maneuvers".) This should be done via PM. Think about this, especially as most of the expansion skill cards are very timing-specific!

Players do not choose the order in which Cylon ships are activated, as in the normal rules. Instead, ships are activated starting in Sector Alpha and proceeding clockwise around Galactica.

Do not forget the Secrecy Rules! (See also page 20 of the rulebook.)
In case of doubt, err on the side of caution.

The basic rule is that any statement made about cards in your hand should be one of two things:
1) A binary statement about card strength: "strong" or "weak". Players should never say "neither strong nor weak". Saying that you play "two big help cards and one small help" for instance is acceptable, though, since the player is still making binary statements.
2) A statement of possession for the purpose of using said posessed card for a specific purpose. For instance "I can XO Adama and then he can nuke the basestar" is acceptable. However, GM's discretion applies. It is not intended as a tool for figuring out other people's hand strengths, or as a roundabout way to divulge your own hand either.

Old players and new players are welcome, but I won't hold your hand to explain the rules!

Logging in to give your orders and possible conditional orders at least daily is necessary so please have fun observing if you can not do that.

Sign up now. Play order will be randomized at the start of the game. Each player should make a wishlist with characters they prefer in the order they prefer them in. The first player will get their first preference, all others may or may not get their first preference based on what has been chosen already.

Ok next now we need a pilot and after that pretty much anything is cool. Although people with engineering would be beneficial as well as multy skilled characters. The 2 military are very focused and my character is slightly balanced over skills but has no engineering or pilot abilities.

A person of swedish descent who doesnt speak swedish. Number of PMs in swedish to date I couldn't understand 18
altering your sig so you hope you wont get anymore confusing PMs
Priceless

*Will update fully when I come up with something good to stick in here*

Play order will be randomized at the start of the game. Each player should make a wishlist with characters they prefer in the order they prefer them in. The first player will get their first preference, all others may or may not get their first preference based on what has been chosen already.

So far I have:

Jacob-Lundgren:
1. Zarek
2. ?
3. ?

Jopi:
1. Cain
2. ?
3. ?

Kriszo:
1. Saul Tigh
2. ?
3. ?

Just to make things clear: The first player is the first player in the randomized play order, not in the order of signup.
edit: Also, Cavil is off limits this game. Every other Cylon leader is fine, though.

Last edited by randakar; 20-09-2010 at 19:18.

"Don’t only practice your art, but force your way into its secrets, for it and knowledge can raise men to the divine."-- Ludwig von Beethoven

If for some reason I cannot get Zarek I will adjust on the fly. I am here enough to not slow this down by not having a list of names and so far no one else has wanted Zarek anyways and politicians are often light.

A person of swedish descent who doesnt speak swedish. Number of PMs in swedish to date I couldn't understand 18
altering your sig so you hope you wont get anymore confusing PMs
Priceless

*Will update fully when I come up with something good to stick in here*

If for some reason I cannot get Zarek I will adjust on the fly. I am here enough to not slow this down by not having a list of names and so far no one else has wanted Zarek anyways and politicians are often light.

Don't worry about it. I'm not a nazi GM. The preference list is there to speed up the signup process, that's all.

"Don’t only practice your art, but force your way into its secrets, for it and knowledge can raise men to the divine."-- Ludwig von Beethoven

If no one else is brave enough I can take that role again. Although a cylon leader with 6 people is a sympathetic one iirc.

That's correct. With 6 players we'd have a symphatetic agenda on the cylon leader. Which may actually mean he has a "humans win" condition, but wich aso may mean he has a "cylons win" condition.

As for not having a cylon leader - the rules are easy enough to remember:

Without a cylon leaders and with 4 or 6 players, someone gets dealt a symphatizer card during the sleeper phase. If a resource is in the red that symphatizer gets send to the brig, otherwise they become a cylon.

There are some minor details regarding what happens when a revealed cylon gets it, but that's all minor.

"Don’t only practice your art, but force your way into its secrets, for it and knowledge can raise men to the divine."-- Ludwig von Beethoven